The Government has been criticised for delaying a ban on plastic wet wipes as it announced a fresh consultation two years after a survey showed 96 per cent support for the policy.
As a rough stab at a first estimate I’d put that at about 4% of the population myself.
Luckily I’m not quite that old yet.
I’m one of the population in the headline. We do most of our shopping at Tesco, who apparently stopped selling plastic wet-wipes last year. I never noticed the difference, so it can’t be much of an issue.
The pipe-clogging issue is a real externality. They could apply a tax to plastic wet wipes, with receipts going to sewerage companies; but a ban is easier and doesn’t require a team of civil servants to administer.
By “wet wipes” I presume they’re talking about those packets of damp squares we call toallitas. If it is, it’s going a lot more than 4%. Mothers use them for cleaning kids hands & faces at home & out & about until they reach their teens & after. They serve the same purpose for adults. There’s ranges made for women to wipe slap off their faces. Possibly one of the neatest, most useful, & indespensible inventions for years. Do the people being surveyed actually know what they’re supporting the banning of? If they did I suspect there’d be riots. Oh hang on! Brits of course. The people who, when their government wants to fuck them, supply their own Vaseline.
Most manufacturers took the plastic out of their wet wipes years ago.
You don’t need plastic to wipe a baby’s arse or a toddler’s nose.
If the issue is blocking toilet pipes, why the **** are they putting them in the toilet in the first place? They should go in the bin.
jgh,
Obviously people shouldn’t throw them down the toilet; but they do. Impossible to ban that. There are some externalities you can tax, and some that you just can’t. Bully XL dogs are another example of this. (This is not my idea, credit to Tyler Cowen: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/09/the-british-ban-on-bully-dogs.html )